Follow You
by Hammond'sTeeth
Summary: Compelled by his curiosity, Law asks an interesting new woman to join the Heart Pirates. Her strength and charm allow her to join the crew with ease, but she seems to draw trouble wherever she goes. LawxOC. SlowishBurn. (On Hiatus)
1. Chapter 1: You'll Be Fine

**Chapter 1**

" **You'll Be Fine."**

" _Mama please, don't let them take you form us." A little girl of only 8 was holding her mother's hand tightly, tears forming in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Emma-chan. I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you both." The older woman, covered in small cuts and bruises, awkwardly removed a golden heart locket necklace from underneath a thick, metal collar. She gently placed it over the blonde head of her daughter, hiding it under her own metal collar. On the box next to the young girl, a small boy was sobbing uncontrollably, mumbling the words 'Mama' every so often._

" _Number 8!"_

 _Two men walked in the cell, clothed in gaudy clown-like outfits and pointy hats, the same men who had dragged the seven other people before her out. She placed a gentle hand on either side of her children's faces. "Don't worry, Emma, Eren. Everything will be ok. I'll come find you later." The two men grabbed her shackled arms and pulled her away from them. "Mama!" Eren jumped up off the box, reaching for his mother before his older sister grabbed him around the chest. "She said she'd come find us! Everything will be alright, we just have to stick together ok?" Emma held him tightly, burying her face into his light brown hair. "I promise I'll take care of you until then." She pulled them back onto their respective boxes and looked up at the number above their heads. "We're next, ok. Whatever happens, I won't let go of your hand." She held out her small hand for him to place his even tinier one._

" _Promise?"_

" _Promise."_

" _Number 9!"_

15 Years Later

"Good afternoon there, Emma-chan." An older, large and, dark skinned man walked into the bar, a gentle smile on his face. He wore a bright red bandana over his balding head and a dirty apron covered his casual t-shirt and shorts. "You know, you say the same thing every time you walk in here, Gus-san." Emma laughed a little, lighting the cigarette in her mouth before continuing to wipe down the counter of the bar. "What can you say, I'm a creature of habit. Gonna get started on the grub." He patted her head as he walked passed to the kitchen, easily towering over her 5'5" frame by a foot. "You better get that soup started, Maru-san should be here in a bit."

Emma continued to wipe down the counter and took one last look over at the small bar. The five wooden tables were evenly spread out on the floor, the last one at least a few feet from the bathroom as well as the stairs leading up to her bedroom. The four booths along the wall had already been cleaned twice and the torn leather seats looked about the same as they did 5 years ago. She threw the dirty rag over her shoulder and walked to the end of the counter that was connected to the wall. She pulled out three glasses, filling them to the brim with beer. "One for the old geezer," she placed a glass in front of the stool and one in front of herself, "one for me, and one for Ty-san." The last glass she placed in front of the framed picture next to her. The picture looked to have been taken ten or so years ago of a man roughly in his 50s. He had spikey grey hair that matched his unruly kept mustache. His muscular arms were crossed tightly over his chest, covering most of his white tank top. A deep frown adorned his face and his dark eyes seemed to be staring into whoever was looking's soul. _'Always had to be a hardass.'_ Emma laughed a little at the thought, tapping the table with two fingers, before heading to the front door.

"Time to open, I guess." She pushed the door out, causing the rusty chimes to sing a song she knew too well, and locked it open. The wind blew a light breeze through her blonde hair as she looked over the nearly empty road. There were maybe two or three men walking across the cobblestone street, unusual for Bell Island this time of year. She pulled the cigarette from her lips and let out a long breath of smoke as she caught sight of the old man from the corner of her eye. "Isn't it such a lovely day, Emma-chan?" He croaked out, walking towards her with a wooden cane in his right hand. She chuckled at the site of him; a 60-something year old man wearing a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt with red flowers on it with matching bright red shorts. His long grey hair and thick, circle rimmed glasses matched his voice, but he seemed to be moving just fine, as he was barely using the cane. "Your arthritis acting up today, ya old geezer?" She could barely finish her sentence before he smacked the side of her thigh with his cane. "Is that how you speak to your elders, child?" He looked as if he might have a stroke and his fist was shaking in anger at her. Emma let out a hearty laugh, wiping the small tears from her eyes. "Just get inside ya coot. I've got our drinks ready and Gus is making your soup."

Maru followed her to the bar, sitting at the seat he claimed many years before. "Katie said Wes had just run out of the house before I left. You should probably keep an eye on your stuff." He said gruffly, grabbing his drink. "Ah figures. He's always up to something these days. She told me he wants to be a pirate now." She picked up the glass in front of her, clinking it together with Maru's and the one in front of Ty's picture, and proceeded to quickly down theirs before tapping the glasses on the table twice. "Want another or going to wait till after your food?" She threw hers in the sink to her left and grabbed his as he slid it to her. "You've almost got me beat, Emma-chan. One day you're going to out drink everyone in town." He mused as she filled up his glass. She smiled and placed it in front of him as Gus came from the back, carrying a hefty bowl of steaming soup in his hand. "Ah, Maru-san! Good to see you on this fine day!" He smiled brightly before placing it front of the old man. "I was just thinking on my way here how unusually nice today is. We almost never get a breeze!" Maru nearly snatched the utensils from Emma's hand before he started to devour the miso soup in front of him. "Hey, hey," She cautioned him with her hands, "don't burn yourself, I don't have time to take care of you today!"

Before the old man could retort with something snarky, the Den Den Mushi on the wall started ringing, which Gus answered. "Hello? Ah, Katie-chan…. Yes, yes, your father is here…... No, I haven't, I'll ask Emma." He politely placed his hand over the transponder and looked at Emma. "Have you seen Wes yet?" She shook her head no. "Not yet, but if I do, I'll make sure to keep him here for her." He nodded and removed his hand. "Katie-chan?...Emma said she hadn't seen him yet, but if he does come by, she'll hold him for you…Yeah, no problem. See ya!" Maru rubbed his forehead roughly and let out a sigh. "Only my grandson would become such a hassle. Poor Katie, she didn't know what she was signing herself up for with motherhood."

"Emma-san!"

Three of the regulars came in, Jones, Mark, and Gen, taking a place at the bar next to Maru, who was still inhaling his large bowl of soup. "Hey guys," She threw the rag off her shoulder onto the side of the sink. "the regular stuff?" They all nodded, and she began pouring their drinks as Gus went to the kitchen to finish the food. "You guys are here pretty early, it's only one. You get laid off already?" She joked, placing their drinks down as they laughed. Gen, sitting in the middle of the three, threw a newspaper down in front of her already turned to the wanted posters section. "Did you hear the rumors?" He pointed to the open page as she shook her head no. "There are a couple pirate crews in town today, but most importantly these two guys. A bunch of places are shut down today cause they're terrified to deal with them." The man on the page he was pointing was quite hideous; a large, round face adorned with an unkempt black beard with large piece of meat hanging out of his mouth. His nose was massive, easily taking up most of his face, and his brown eyes were half lidded and drooping. His hat was peculiar, as it was basically a giant, fake dog. "These are the Marley pirates. Captain Marley with a bounty of 40,000,000. Half the towns they visit end up getting destroyed, with mass casualties. I've heard he can even turn into a dog." She laughed a little, picking up the piece of paper and scanning it over one last time. "A Devil Fruit user, huh? We don't get to see to many of those." She put out her finished cigarette in the ashtray, ignoring the concerned look of one of the men in front of her. "But," the man continued, pointing at the wanted poster under it. The man is this picture was easier on the eyes, even with a creepy smile on his face. He had on a yellow and black hoodie as well as white hat with black spots that covered his hair and he was holding what looked to be a rather large nodachi. His other hand was held up next to his face, like he knew his picture was being taken, which was decorated in tattoos: a strange symbol on the back of it as well as the letters ' H' across each finger. His yellow eyes added more to the uneasiness in the picture. "This guy. Trafalgar Law, captain of the Heart Pirates, a bounty of 75,000,000. He's a doctor that comes from North Blue and is so sadistic they even call him the 'Surgeon of Death'. I've heard he likes to torture people to death. No one wants to get in his way." All three of the men looked fairly stressed at the thought of these guys coming by. "And you're probably the only bar open in town right now, which means they'll end up here."

Emma shook her head before lighting another cigarette. "We always see pirates, most of them have notable bounties. What makes these guys any different?" Mark shook his head, slapping his hand over the picture of Trafalgar Law. "Pirates have been showing up more and more in this town. My sis was attacked by a group of 'em just last week! They broke both her arms!" He yelled, a few tears welling in his eyes before he shook his head. "Not only that, they're drawing more and more of the Marines over here. How are we supposed to live peacefully with those jerks looming over us?" Jones chimed in making Emma laugh a little. "Using the word peacefully in this town is a bit ironic, no? Maybe a lawless place like this shit hole could use some regulating."

"Neh, captain let's stop and get some food. We've been walking around this lame place for an hour."

Law looked at his red-haired subordinate, who was grabbing his rumbling abdomen dramatically. "I agree, we barely got to eat breakfast." Penguin chimed in, his stomach also growling. "That's because you guys woke up ten minutes before we left…." Bepo sheepishly stated from behind the three men, gripping Kikoku a little tighter in his paws. "No one asked you!"

"Ah, sorry."

The weather was warm with a slight breeze, but there were very few people out in the early afternoon. Any person the four came across whispered to whoever they were with and immediately ran past them. Everything seemed to be closed, including all the restaurants. "If you can find somewhere open. Must be a holiday today." Law said, knowing they would stop their incessant arguing once they ate. If the entire town was closed down, there was no need for them to stay here longer than it took Ikkaku to check over the ship. Although entering the Grand Line wasn't too treacherous for a submarine, he didn't want to take any chances before going any further.

As the crew continued to walk down the barren cobblestone streets, a sudden burst of laughter erupted from an open door a few feet away. "Ah, a pub! Thank god, I thought I was going to starve today." Shachi was drooling from the lovely aroma coming from the pub. "and I heard a woman's laugh, I hope she's pretty." Penguin had hearts in eyes, not thinking through the ultimate disappointment that he met whenever he talked to a woman for more than five seconds. "The Worst Pub in Town?" Bepo questioned the sign above the open door, tilting his head. "Why would you name it that?" He questioned and Law casually shrugged at him before heading towards it.

The laughter that once consumed the place stopped almost immediately when the four walked in. The restaurant was small and about as empty as the town itself. The bar was full with three younger men staring at Law wide eyed and pale and an older gentleman hurriedly eating something froma bowl. The large man standing behind the bar in front of them wearing an apron covered in grease held his hand out to the seating area. "You boys sit anywhere you like, Emma will get your orders in a sec." He didn't seem too fazed by the pirates as they took the booth in the back corner. "Emma! You got customers!" He yelled towards the stairs, leaning over the bar next to the shaking young men before heading through a door to what could only be the kitchen.

"Oi, oi, you don't have to yell at me, Gus-san." A woman's voice rang followed by the creaking of steps. "I leave for two seconds…." Her grumbling became incoherent as she reached the bottom of the steps. Law watched as Shachi and Penguin's jaws dropped simultaneously, and blood began to pour from their noses. "And what can I get started for you, Heart Pirates?" She asked, coming off a little smug, walking up next to their table. He leaned his head back and looked out of the corner of his eyes. She was about average height with blonde hair parted in the middle that reached down just below her shoulders where it started to get a little wavy. Her bright green eyes, which held no fear or reservation of the pirates, were looking at Shachi as she took his drink order. The smoke from her cigarette almost hid the freckles that lightly dusted her nose and cheeks. A golden heart locket came down just above her breasts, and to the left of it was the name 'Eren' tattooed in cursive on her chest. The grey leather vest she had on was almost a little too small: it wasn't fully zipped, and a bit of her red bra was poking over the top. The vest stopped about a quarter of an inch before her belly button, leaving a stretch of open skin until the tops of her equally small jean shorts. There was a rather large scar starting from the bottom of her right side and ending somewhere near her left hip. After giving the woman a good look over, he noted the key three things that stood out to him: the large tattoo of a sakura tree on her right upper arm, the golden revolver she carried on her left thigh, and the lower part of her left leg. Just below the knee was a shiny metal prosthesis attached to her leg. He was rather intrigued; he'd heard of some advancements in this field, but never before had he seen something other than wood used for amputated limbs. She was wearing black combat boots that covered what would be her foot, but he couldn't help and wonder if it even looked like a foot.

"And what can I get you two?" She asked, now looking at him and Bepo. The poor bear was nervously twiddling his thumbs: people were generally afraid of a talking animal and he couldn't help but feel upset every time someone ran away from him screaming. "Um…" He muttered before looking up at her, checking for any signs of terror. "…. I'll just take a lemonade and fried rice." She nodded as she wrote his order down on her palm before turning her eyes to Law. He turned to look at her, smiling. "What happened to your leg?"

"C-Captain!" Penguin and Shachi looked as if they were about to have an aneurysm and Bepo was sweating nervously. Law never broke eye contact with the woman, crossing his arms over his chest. Before any of the other three could apologize to her, she broke out in laughter, holding her stomach dramatically. "Man, if I had a coin for every time a man tried hitting on me with that line, I could go on a nice vacation." She wiped a small tear from her eye before looking back at the now scowling captain. "I didn't expect you to be so blunt, doctor-san. But," she gave him a wink, "you'll have to buy me a drink before you get any answers." She walked back towards the bar where the three men were shaking in fear, leaving Law's three companions chuckling at their frowning captain.

"E-Emma-s-san…." Jones muttered sheepishly, hiding his terrified face from the pirates behind him. "You can't just talk to pirates like that, they'll kill you." She waved him off, walking to the kitchen door to let Gus know what he needed to get started on. "I won't let anything happen here, you know that." Mark shook his head quickly, but before he could say anything to her casualness, three more men walked into the bar rather noisily. The man in the middle with long, vibrant, orange hair spit onto the ground. His left eye was covered in bandages and his right arm was in a sling. His companions on either side of him looked similar to mummies with the amount of bandaging they had on their bodies. "Ah, Oliver and friends." Emma noted, grabbing the three drinks for the pirates in the back corner. "Nice day huh? Take a seat and I'll get your usual." Oliver was glaring at her as she walked passed him. "Don't talk to us like you did nothing wrong! I could have my vision damaged because of you!" He angrily stomped at her like a child but continued to take a seat at the booth closest to the door. "Well, next time don't try and grab a lady without her permission. You're lucky I didn't tell your parents about it. Those injuries would be the least of your problems." She winked at him before placing the drinks down in front of the boiler suit wearing men. "Decide on anything, doctor-san?" The captain looked up her, still frowning from her previous statements. "Just coffee- "he was cut off by his first mate suddenly knocking over his drink all over the table. The polar bear began to panic, grabbing as many napkins as he possibly could from the dispenser and throwing them on top of the mess.

"You're so clumsy!"

"Sorry…."

Emma laughed lightly at the scene, her cigarette almost falling from her lips. She grabbed the empty glass and smiled at him. "Not to worry, Bear-san. I'll grab you another one." She said before turning to Law. "I'll have to brew a fresh pot, it'll take a moment if that's alright with you?" He simply nodded as she grabbed up the soaking napkins. "Thank you, Emma-san." She looked at the bear, blushing and hiding his face in embarrassment. "It happens a lot, not to worry! What's your name, bear-san?" This question only made him pulls the collar of his orange jumpsuit up higher. "It's Bepo." She smiled brightly. "Well, Bepo-san, don't worry about the mess. I've had to clean way worse." He nodded, removing his hands from his face. "Emma-chan, don't worry about that clumsy fool. I'm Shachi, and this here is Penguin." The red-haired man pointed at himself and Penguin before smiling pervertedly at her. Emma frowned, she could practically see the hearts in the two men's eyes. _'What a weird band of men.'_ She thought before shaking her head and walking away, completely ignoring the now heartbroken idiots. As she walked back towards the bar, Oliver called her over with a quite 'psst'. "Did you want something new today? Or are you going to complain how I kicked your ass some more?" She was actually puzzled as to why the younger man wanted to speak with her. He beckoned her to lower her ear near his mouth, which she obliged to. "I-Is that the Surgeon of Death?" He asked, a mixture of worry and wonderment in his voice. She nodded, straightening back up. "Yes, yes. It's fine. I won't let anything happen." Oliver shook his head, smiling a little weirdly. "I heard he's super strong. Do you think he'd let me join his crew?" The two turned their heads to look at the pirates, making eye contact with the doctor himself. She laughed before putting her cigarette out on the ash tray on their table. "You? A pirate?" She scoffed. "Get real. You wouldn't make it one day out there!" She ruffled his hair, making him even angrier. "How about I give you a job here, neh? Keep you out of trouble." Before he could retort, a loud 'thunk' followed by a scream came from the direction of the bar.

"Grandpa, you annoying old man!"

Wes, a small brown-haired boy of only 11, was rolling on the floor next to Maru holding the newly formed bump on his head. Emma scowled and lit another cigarette, taking a long drag from it. _'How did Katie-san end up with a little shit like him?'_ she questioned herself before shaking her head. She had recently agreed to employ the kid as a busboy to keep him out of trouble in the city. Just last week he was caught hitting Rika, a girl he had grown up with, just out of spite. His mother had come crying to the bar, begging Emma for help as she didn't know what to do with him anymore.

"Oi, Wes." She walked over and stood next to him, still nursing his injury. His eyes widened in terror as he realized what was happening. "Emma-san! H-hey! I just got here, sorry I was running late and…" He started to ramble off with excuses, which only made the woman frown harder. Maru chuckled, taking a swig of the drink he must've poured himself when she wasn't looking. "Wes was just trying to talk me into helping him steal some of your money." The old man said casually, not even giving his grandson a sympathetic look for his murder. A shadow casted over her eyes as she knelt next to the boy. "G-grandpa…. how could you…." He slowly turned his head to the terrifying woman. "Emma-san, it's nothing like that! H-He's making me look bad and- "She grabbed the back of his shirt collar and began dragging him back to the kitchen. All the men at the bar were laughing so hard tears were pouring from their eyes. "Once I get finished beating your ass, you start cleaning. Got it?"

"Y-Yes ma'am!"

Two hours had passed since the arrival of the Heart Pirates at the pub and Law was already itching to leave. "Emma-san sure is nice." Bepo smiled, looking at her behind the bar as she laughed and poured the other men drinks. "She didn't say anything weird about me." Law had noted she didn't seem amazed at the fact a polar bear in a boiler suit was asking her for fried rice, but he put it off to the town being a major port for people coming into the Grand Line. "Meh, she's rude." Shachi muttered, spinning the paper from his straw with his finger on the table. Penguin nodded in agreement. "She didn't even say anything to our compliments…." He crossed his arms over his chest, pouting like a small child. "Maybe if you stopped being so perverted…."

"You're perverted too!"

"Sorry."

The trio continued to argue over Emma, making Law frown. Not only was it annoying to hear them yelling, he still hadn't gotten an answer about her leg. In all his research, he'd rarely come across prosthesis that were metal. Perhaps she was a cyborg? And her leg could turn into some sort of weaponry? "Pirate-san." He was pulled from his thoughts by the young boy holding a tray in front of him. "Are you finished with your plates?" The kid definitely did not want to be here, especially after taking a brutal beating from the young woman: his eye was still swollen shut and purple and he may have been missing a few teeth. Law set his coffee cup on the tray and leaned towards the kid. "Wes, was it?" He grinned as the boy swallowed hard. "Y-Yes sir." The tray started to shake. "What can you tell me about your boss?"

"Emma-san?" Law nodded and Wes regained his composure. "Well, she's pretty evil that's for sure. She likes to beat people up. My mom said she moved here when I was really little, and she used to baby sit me. She lived here with Ty-san till he passed away two years ago…. that's about it." He told the older man, shrugging as he collected the other plates on the table. "And her leg?" Wes wasn't very amused by the conversation; he was a little weirded out as to why this man was asking so many questions about Emma. "I dunno. She's had it since I can remember. She doesn't talk about it, but no one really asks." Law frowned and let out a deep sigh, knowing he would never find out.

The kid walked away, continuing to collect empty dishes across the bar. The pirate captain gestured to the other three it was time to head out, to which they nodded in agreement. As Law grabbed his nodachi, a bellowing laughter erupted from the entryway. A group of 15 men stood in the doorway with a large ugly man, the captain, standing at the very front. _'Marley Pirates….'_ He frowned, hoping these men didn't try to start anything, he really wasn't in the mood for a fight. Everyone else in the bar became tense and Emma walked out from the kitchen throwing a dirty rag over her shoulder.

"Take a seat where ever you'd like, I'll bring you guys some drinks."

The obnoxious pirate group took up all the seating in the middle, Captain Marley whistling inappropriately at the young woman. "How much do you cost a night, girly?" One of the men asked, batting his eyelashes as she placed drinks down at the tables. They all howled with laughter, but she refused to answer, a deep frown adorning her face. _'Disgusting pigs.'_ She thought to herself, placing a hand on her hip. "You guys want anything to eat?" The captain was smiling creepily at her. "Eat? Little lady we want you! You look like you could take us all on in a night without getting tired." Her hand clenched into a tight fist by her side as he began laughing so hard tears were pouring down his face. He threw his arms back, wanting his crew to join in the antics, which knocked Wes on his back, spilling dirty dishes all over the floor. "Ow, ow." He complained, rubbing his arm and looking up at Marley, who had stopped laughing.

"Did you get in my way, kid?"

Wes's eyes went wide, and he shook his head frantically. "N-No, sir! I'm sorry. You accidently hit me with your arm and-" Marley immediately lifted a fist in the air, his eyes shaking with rage. "You blame me?! For getting in my way?!" He started to bring his arm down on the boy but was stopped immediately by Emma grabbing his wrist with her left hand. He raised an eyebrow and looked at her, not expecting this outcome. She pulled the cigarette from her lips and stuck the burning in end right into his forearm. "Captain!" His crew began to get out of their seats, drawing their weapons. "I wasn't expecting this from you." Marley chuckled, putting up his other hand to tell his men to hold their position. "Not many people are strong enough- "

"Stop talking."

There was a loud crack and Marley let out cry as she snapped his wrist. "I'll ignore you degrading me, but don't you dare lay a finger on him." She let go of his arm and motioned for Wes to get behind the bar. "You little bitch!" He snarled, his anger getting the best of him as he lunged towards the much smaller woman. She easily dodged the attack and kicked the man in the face, forcing his head into the wooden table. One of Marley's crew members came at her with his sword drawn, yelling profanities. Emma quickly pulled the revolver from the holster and placed it against his forehead, stopping him in his tracks. By now, every other person in the bar, besides the Heart Pirates, had stood up with their weapons drawn and prepared to fight.

"Get out of my bar."

Emma cocked the gun and the man began to sweat nervously. "G-Grab the captain and let's go!" It took four of them to hoist the unconscious man on their shoulders and carry him out the door. The man in front of her hadn't moved and she refused to bring the gun down. "Captain will get you back for this." He growled, making her smirk. "I sure hope so. We'll make this a fun little game." He smacked her arm away and charged out the door, grumbling the entire way.

"Emma-san!" Wes came out from behind the bar and hugged her waist, crying into her stomach. "Are you hurt?" He sobbed and she lit another cigarette. "No, but" She kicked a piece of the destroyed table next to her. "I'll have to find some time to fix this table, damn pirates."

The Heart Pirates started to head towards the door, Bepo leading the way. "Ah, I'm sorry about the table, Emma-san." He said quietly before handing her the money they owed. "The food was very good." He bowed his head slightly making her laugh a little. "It's alright, not the first time and won't be the last." She patted Wes's head, who was still sobbing uncontrollably into her stomach. "May have deserved it for being rude…." Shachi mumbled, only to be hit on the back of the head by Penguin. "Bastard!"

Law was the last to walk past her, holding his nodachi against his shoulder and looking at the ground. "You're very surprising, Emma-ya." He grinned and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "I hope we meet again soon." She let out a small chuckle and nodded. "I guess we'll have to see then, doctor-san."

Emma sighed, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead. It was just after two in the morning and the bar was closed and locked up. She sent Gus home early; he'd done a great job today and he definitely needed a break. "I could definitely use a break too." She muttered to herself as she began counting the money from the day. Most days were pretty busy and if she didn't hire more employees soon, she'd be digging herself an early grave.

If the bar continued to take in the rising influx of pirates, she was going to hire a carpenter or something. Every week for the past two months something got broken either by a rowdy group or her having to kick them out. She was lucky today the two crews didn't get into it. Having heard how disastrous they could be, this place could have been turned to nothing.

' _That man…'_ She set down the money on the counter and lit another cigarette. That creepy doctor had been on her mind most of the night. Wes had told her later how he asked about her, specifically her leg. It was creepy, but from a medical standpoint not many people walked around with such advanced prosthesis, most were just wooden. Maru said he felt as if death walked in the room when his crew entered. _'Superstitious old coot.'_ She laughed to herself before rubbing her tired eyes. It was time for sleep.

She turned to walk out from behind the bar when the window farthest away from her broke. "Hm?" She stood on her tippy toes to see what may have been thrown in and her eyes widened: two bombs with lit fuses rolled out into the middle of the room. _'Shit!'_ There wasn't enough time for her to run so she threw herself down on her knees and folded her body over them. She covered her ears and the back of her neck with her hands, as if her small fingers were going to protect anything.

It was only a mere seconds before the bombs exploded, but to her it was an eternity. So many thoughts were racing in her mind, mostly of her apologizing to Ty repeatedly. If she hadn't been so careless to make everyone hate her, this wouldn't have happened. She promised him she would take care of this place and she failed. Her heart pounding in her ears was almost louder than the explosion itself.

Her body was thrown through the wall and into the kitchen; debris landing all around and on top of her. The wooden bones of the building started creaking and snapping as smoke from the fires filled her lungs. She coughed and placed her mouth into the crook of her elbow before uncovering herself. Her body was already sore and covered in smalls cuts, but as she stood up her right leg became almost too painful to stand on. She looked down and saw a large piece of wood from the bar imbedded into her thigh surrounded by blood and ash.

' _Fuck me.'_

She coughed and began to limp back towards where she had been standing before. The entire place was in ruins and on fire: pieces of the ceiling were crashing down, indicting a collapse at any moment. She needed to get out and get out soon. She hobbled as fast as she could and grabbed what money was still viable, shoving it into her small pockets.

There was only one small place left attached at the bar: Ty's picture was sitting there untouched by the catastrophe. She couldn't help but laugh at the old bastard, knowing well enough he was cursing at her wherever his spirit was. She grabbed the picture and ran as fast as her injured legs would take her right out the front door.

Law rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. Ikkaku managed to finish the ship only an hour ago, but everyone was too exhausted to head out right away and voted to rest here till the morning. As is the same with most nights, he couldn't sleep and decided to go for a walk around the small town. Even at almost three in the morning, there had to be something to distract him till day break.

He grabbed the nodachi setting up against the door and headed outside into the cool night. Stepping out onto the deck, he saw two men running past towards the docks about half a mile away. He followed the path they had ran towards the town, noticing a bright glow towards the middle. Letting curiosity get the best of him, he jumped the railing onto the dock and made his way towards the commotion.

It didn't take long until he was met by people running wildly in both directions screaming about a fire. Within a few minutes he reached the burning building, although it seemed to be under control. A few men were holding hoses on it while others were throwing buckets of water onto the rubble. What was most likely a two-story building before had been demolished into a pile of ash and wooden ruins. In the middle of the street was a group of people crowding around something or someone.

"We need to get you to the doctor!"

"The doctor is never open this late."

"He's all the way on the other side of town, anyways!"

"Do you think she'll make it until morning?"

"She's going to bleed out and die you idiot!"

Letting his curiosity win again, he headed towards the center of the crowd to check out the severity of the injuries. He couldn't help but smirk as he saw Emma sitting on the ground smoking a cigarette and holding a picture frame tightly in her lap. She had many small cuts and bruises but was mostly just covered in ash. The worst injury he could physically see was a large chunk of wood embedded into her right thigh, but nothing that would kill her. "Meh, meh." She was waving the concerned citizens off. "I'm perfectly fine. I can deal with this myself."

It took her a few minutes of scanning the crowd before meeting his eyes. She went through a flurry of emotions; confused, angry, annoyed. "Doctor-san." She said shortly, her eyes never leaving his. He chuckled, walking through the path the crowd made for him before kneeling next to her. "It wasn't you." She let out a small sigh of relief but continued to frown deeply. "But I definitely know who it was."

Law set his nodachi down on the ground beside him and placed his hand beside her most serious injury. "It's not too deep, but you'll need stitches." She shook her head quickly. "I don't do needles. I'll be fine, it'll heal up on its own." She crossed her arms and turned away from him. "It will- "

"I said I'm fine."

"-get infected. It needs to be cleaned and have the debris removed. Without stitches it won't heal properly." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He was still smiling, and she could tell he wanted something. "Will you do that for me?" She asked, making him chuckle and sending a shiver up her spine. "Only if you join my crew." By now, the crowd had dispersed back to their homes now that most of the excitement had faded away, leaving the two of them in the street alone.

"Tch." Emma scoffed at his request before looking at her now destroyed home. She had lost everything at this point. Of course, Maru and Katie would allow her to live with them but what would she do for work? Just go back to bartending and waitressing? She grabbed the picture of Ty that had somehow survived the destruction. _'Bastards, all of you.'_ She turned to the doctor and sighed a bit dramatically.

"Fine, but I won't be happy about it."


	2. Chapter 2: Welcome to the Family

**Chapter 2**

" **Welcome to the Family."**

Emma sighed and looked up at the half full moon as she walked down the street. Her? A pirate? It was a strange thought, but maybe it was something she needed to do. Law, her new captain, was walking a few paces behind her and they hadn't said a word to each other. After agreeing to join his crew, he fixed up her leg in a matter of seconds. His Devil Fruit ability was definitely the strangest thing she'd ever seen: her stomach churned remembering her dismembered leg floating in front of her as he removed the chunk of wood from her thigh. _'It could be fun, as long as he doesn't kill me first.'_

After walking another block, they reached their destination. It was early, and she felt awful for waking them up at such an ungodly hour, but she had to say goodbye. This was her one request to law before she joined, and he allowed it but didn't seem to care much. He only came with her just in case she decided to run without answering his questions.

"Hello?"

The middle-aged woman opened the door and yawned before rubbing her eyes. She was wearing a black bathrobe and her brown hair was up in a messy bun. Her tired blue eyes widened a little when they met Emma's. "Emma-chan! Why are you here? Are you ok? You're dirty and hurt!" She went into frantic mother mode and grabbed the younger girl's arms, who just gave a lighthearted laugh. "Katie-san, I'm fine. A little banged up, but fine. I just came here to say…. good bye."

"Katie, who is it?" Maru asked gruffly, pushing her to side of the doorway. His hands were clenched into fists as he stared angrily at the visitors. "Father, it's just Emma. She said…. she said she's here to say good bye?" They turned to look at her, confusion on their faces. "Good bye? What about the bar? Where are you going?" The older man looked past her at the pirate captain. "It's you. How'd you manage to talk her into this?"

"Now, now!" Emma placed a hand behind her head and laughed nervously. "He helped me, which is why I'm going with him. But, Maru-san, the bar was destroyed. I'm guessing by those pirates from earlier today." She shook her head and sighed. "Anyways, everything is gone, except Ty-san's picture. It somehow managed to survive the blast. As much as I know he'd be pissed about the bar, we all know this is what's best for me."

Katie held her hands over her mouth and shook her head, tears flying from her eyes. "I'm so glad you're ok, Emma-chan. He always knew you wouldn't stay here forever, but we'll miss you so much." She hugged Emma tightly and Maru patted her on the arm. "You've got a mouth on ya, but I know you'll do well out there. We didn't train you all these years for nothing."

Emma nodded, smiling as she removed herself from Katie's embrace. "Oh, that reminds me." She reached into her pocket, pulling what little money she managed to save out. "It's not a whole lot, but I want you guys to have this. If you find any more in the rubble, it's yours." She placed it into Maru's open palm. "Oh, and please let Sy-san know what happened. I'm sure he won't be happy with the outcome, but I'll hopefully be able to see him soon!" She laughed nervously and Katie shook her head. "He's definitely going to be sending us an angry letter about it."

After giving the two one last hug, she turned and headed back towards Law. "Ready, doctor-san?" She shoved one hand in her pocket, the other clutching the picture frame, and smiled at him. He didn't answer, just turned and started walking back towards the docks. _'This will be a fun trip.'_ She sighed to herself, also thinking of the three other weirdos with him earlier in the day.

"Wes, wait! Come back inside!"

Emma barely got a chance to turn around before Wes threw himself into her back. "A-Are you really leaving, Emma-san?" He was sobbing making her laugh a little. "Yeah, it's about time. Don't you think?" She ruffled his hair a little bit. "You take care of your mom, ok?" He looked up at her, tears and snot streaming down his young face. "Who's gonna train me if you're gone?" She shook her head and sighed lightly. "You don't need training, I don't want you getting into more trouble. Your mom and grandpa would kill me!" She laughed as he released himself from around her waist. "Listen, I'll come back and visit sometime. Take good care of yourself and your family, alright? You better do well in school and get you a good job." He wiped his face and sniffled loudly before pointing at Law. "And you!" The man had his head tilted forward causing his hat to cast a dark shadow over his eyes. "You better take care of Emma-san, or I'll come get you!" Laughing a little, she flicked his forehead. "Stop threatening people, baka."

Waving good bye to the people she had come to love for the past ten years caused a small ache in her heart. She wanted to cry, really, she did. It physically hurt her that she wasn't able to shed tears for them, but she knew it wasn't her fault. She shook her head lightly; she needed to stop thinking about the past. She never dreamed she'd be a pirate, but here she was. Following a notoriously evil pirate back to his ship to join his crew. How could she ever get so lucky?

It wasn't long before they reached the dock and Bepo was there waiting. "Captain! Where did you go, we were looking for you everywhere!" He exclaimed, waving his arms around dramatically. "Wait." He stopped, blinking multiple times as he noticed the woman by his side. "Hello, bear-san." She waved awkwardly as Law climbed onto the deck. "Bepo, Emma will be joining us from now on." He walked past his navigator towards the door. "Joining us? Like part of our crew?"

"Yeah, I guess I am a crew member now." She laughed lightly and climbed on board, noting that their ship was a vibrantly bright yellow submarine. "How did you guys get a hold of a submarine? I've only seen one once…." She trailed off as neither of them were listening to her. Bepo was right on top of Law asking question after question about her. "Well, never mind then." She followed them inside, shutting the heavy metal door behind her.

"We should leave pretty soon. Get someone to show Emma around so you can navigate. I'm going to my room."

Law immediately turned to the left towards the stairs, leaving two very confused crew members standing in the hallway. Bepo sighed and turned to the woman, looking at her injuries. "Did those guys come back?" He asked sadly and she nodded. "Yeah, they blew up the bar. Decided it would be best for me to head out." She shrugged and looked at their surroundings. The hallway was cold and dark and split into three paths. On their left were stairs down and to their right were stairs heading up. Straight forward was a long, eerie hallway that lead to who knows where.

"Well," Bepo started, drawing her back to reality. "I think some of the others are awake who can help out. But for now, here" He pointed to their right, "are stairs to controls for the sub and mapmaking room. That's what I do, as the navigator." He said proudly, pointing at himself. It took him only a moment to become embarrassed and blush. "A-And this way is the surgical ward. We have a bunch of advanced machines and stuff for surgery. Captain's put in a lot of work to become a great doctor." He pointed down the creepy hallway in front of them. "Gross. Hospitals creep me out." A shiver ran up Emma's spine and Bepo laughed a little.

"Follow me, I'm sure someone's eating in the kitchen and can show you the rest of the way."

They headed down the stairs to the left, leading them into a dining room with a large picnic-like table that could seat over 20 people. Passed that was the actual kitchen with two fridges, a large stove and oven, and three sinks. This all hugged the edge of the left side along with multiple cabinets. There was a large island in the middle that was covered in food to prep for the next meal. To the right, a door was open leading into what she could only assume was the pantry. "Shachi's probably in there." She followed the polar bear through the open door and let out an audible gasp. It was massive! Shelves upon shelves upon shelves of food covered the walls. She couldn't even reach the top! There was a mountain of barrels, presumably alcohol, stacked against the wall on the far side.

"Oi, Bepo. You better not be eating all my food." A familiar voice chastised the bear, who apologized for no reason. "So, you were going to eat it!" Shachi had turned around to yell at his fellow crew member when he finally noticed Emma. "It's you? Why are you here?" He crossed his arms and pouted childishly. "Captain asked her to join the crew." Bepo pushed her in front of him. "You have to show her around now so I can get us going!" He quickly took off back upstairs, leaving a surprised Shachi alone with her.

"Why would captain want you here?"

She shrugged as he shooed her out of the pantry, closing the door behind them. He placed his hands in the pockets of his boiler suit and gestured his head to follow him down the hallway. "Those assholes from earlier came back and blew up my bar. I didn't really have anywhere else to go." She explained and he laughed. "So, you asked to join the crew?" He stopped them right next to another set of stairs that headed to a lower level. "Nope." She shook her head. "He happened to be walking by and helped my injuries. I said yes when he asked, why not I guess?"

"Tch." He pulled one hand out to fix his hat. "Well, as long as you're not useless. Can you do anything around here? I guess you can kind of fight, you didn't do that much though." She frowned as he tried to make her sound bad. "I can cook and bake. Gus and Katie taught me how to do all that when I first moved here. Maru-san and Ty-san have been teaching me how to fight for the past ten years. I guess I can clean, but most people can." She put a finger on her bottom lip, thinking. "Well, I guess you can help me in the kitchen then. There's now 23 people on the ship and we eat a lot." He gestured towards the stairs. "This leads to the bottom level where the baths and Captain's room are. No one ever really goes to his room unless somethings wrong."

She followed Shachi down another long, eerie hallway. Thankfully, this one had windows on the side that let in some light. "Here's where the rest of us sleep." There were two doors at the end of the hallway, the one on the left was open and echoing with the sound of laughter. She peered in and saw a few bunk beds and a few men who hadn't noticed them yet standing around talking. "That's the men's side." He walked up to the closed door on the right ride and knocked loudly. "Here's the women's side. It's a bit quitter."

"Gimme a sec."

There was some fumbling around behind the door and Shachi stepped back. By now, a few men on the other side were leaning their heads out of the door. "~Oooh, Shachi who's this?" A man with short brown bangs and a strange, wavy black hat asked. "You got a girlfriend and didn't tell us?!" Another man poked his head out: his puffy black hair obscured his eyes and a long grey bandana covered the rest of his face. "Why can't you ever bring any cute guys over?" A third man with white hair down to his shoulder and a green baseball cap with small moose antlers joined in. "Shachi got a girlfriend?" The last one to come out was the other man at the bar earlier: Penguin. "It's you!"

Before anyone could answer, the door to the woman's room opened revealing a woman in blue pajamas, yawning dramatically. She was wiping the sleep from her brown eyes and had her puffy brown hair pulled back by a headband. "What do you need, I'm exhausted." She complained, frowning as she looked over the two of them. "Well since you guys are here." Shachi moved his hand from the top of Emma's head to her waist. "This is our new crew member: Emma."

"What? Why did he ask her?"

"Ah, she's so pretty!"

"It'll be nice to have another girl to look at!"

"She looks badass!"

"Let me introduce you to the other idiots." Shachi sighed and pointed at them one by one.

Wavy black hat man: "Clione."

Bandana mask man: "Uni."

White haired man: "Moose."

' _That one's pretty obvious.'_ She thought to herself as Shachi continued. "You met Penguin earlier." He pointed to his friend who waved lightly, a light blush on his cheeks. "I'm Shachi, and your new roommate is- "

"Ikkaku." The woman cut him short and opened the door for Emma to enter. "It's late, you better get in here before those idiots start annoying you." She beckoned her inside quickly. "Ah, you're right it's late. It was nice meeting you, I'll see you all in the morning." Emma practically jumped inside the room before the men could say anything and Ikkaku slammed it shut, locking it.

"They're all pretty much controlled by their dicks, not their brains." She sighed and shook her head. "Not that they'd try anything, but sometimes they do some serious prank wars and I don't want to be involved in that." Emma nodded and looked around her new room. It was just as big as the men's side and filled with just as many beds. She could tell Ikkaku slept on the bottom of the one closest to the door. There were dressers in between each set of beds too. "You can pick whichever you'd like. Obviously there's plenty of room in here." She went and sat on her own bed and crossed her arms, watching Emma closely.

"I'll take this one." Emma sat down on the bottom bunk in the middle, about two beds away from Ikkaku. She placed the dirty picture frame of Ty on the dresser next to her. "It's pretty rare Captain just asks someone to join the crew." Ikkaku said, almost as if she was disapproving the decision. Emma shrugged as she took off her boots and threw them to the ground. "I'm a little surprised as well. But, I have nowhere else to go now so I said yes. Does he usually ask for the crew's permission?"

"No, he doesn't care what we think. You look like you got into a fight. I assume he thinks you're strong."

Emma sighed and placed her dirty hair up in a ponytail. "I got into a little scrap, but I didn't get cut up from it. Some dickwad pirates blew up my bar." She explained and the other woman nodded understandingly. "Yeah, they're kind of assholes like that." She was smiling now but turned her attention to her leg. "What happened there? Pretty interesting leg."

"Everyone keeps asking." Emma laughed lightly, stretching out the leg in focus. She removed her revolver from the holster and placed it on the dresser. "I lost it when I was a kid a while back. It's not that big of a deal." Ikkaku opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by the loudspeaker.

"Going down in 5 minutes. We should reach Wraxel Island by midday."

Bepo's voice cut off and Emma raised an eyebrow. _'What an interesting set up.'_ She thought as Ikkaku stood up and went to the lights. "We'll, I'm sure you'll get a bunch of questions at breakfast so I can wait till then. Let's get some rest for now."

Emma groaned as she opened her eyes. She had barely slept with all that had happened and on top of it her leg was aching. _'It wasn't just a bad dream.'_ She thought to herself, frowning. Her back made a loud cracking sound as she sat up and placed her feet on the cold floor. If everyone was still asleep, she could take some time to herself before getting bombarded by the rest of the crew.

Ikkaku was snoring lightly and didn't budge as Emma awkwardly made her way to the door. It was extremely dark, and the shades were pulled down over the small windows. She shuffled her feet slowly, hoping to not stub a toe on the edge of the bedframe. At last she found the metal door, which was surprisingly hard to open. "Shit." She grumbled as it creaked open, letting a small beam of light in the room. She turned to see if the other woman had been bothered by it, but she had on a bright yellow eye mask.

Emma laughed a little as she stepped out, bringing the heavy door with her. As her luck would have, Shachi was doing the same next to her. His red hair was a ruffled mess and he had a bit of drool hanging from his mouth still. "Hey." She said quietly, giving him an awkward wave. He gave her a weird look as he placed his cap over his unbrushed hair. "Why are you up so early?" He motioned for her to follow him down the hallway.

"I didn't sleep much."

"Hm, not surprising I guess. The sub is hard to get used to. You can help me with breakfast at least."

He turned the lights on as they continued the journey into the kitchen. The windows were uncovered here, but since they were underwater no light came through. She stepped over to one of them and watched as a large school of fish were pulled by quickly in the current. "What do you usually make for everyone?" She asked as he headed into the large pantry. "Eggs are usually the easiest thing for breakfast. I make a crap ton of bacon and occasionally I'll make something special like pancakes. We always have coffee, mostly for the captain, and tea ready." He came back out holding a few bags of apples. "Here, I'll show you what you can start on."

It didn't take long for the aroma of bacon, eggs, and coffee to spread through the ship. Law was the first to come up, but it looked as though he hadn't slept well either. "Morning, captain." Shachi said, handing him a cup of coffee almost as an instinct. Law grabbed it from his subordinates' hand and turned to Emma, who was cooking up some more eggs. "Emma, I see you've already found something to help with." She smiled and looked at him: he wasn't wearing his hat, revealing his short, messy black hair. "Doctor-san, good morning. Someone has to make some good food around here." She teased, making Shachi glare at her.

Law said nothing as the two began bickering loudly. He almost regretted his choice of taking the woman on board, but he found her too interesting to ignore. As he sat down in the middle of the table, the rest of the crew came barging in, moaning and groaning about lack of sleep. They barely noticed the newest crew member carrying a large plate of bacon and eggs over to the table.

"W-Whoa, wait who's that?!"

"A girl?!"

"Captain you never told us you were getting a maid!"

Shachi smacked a few them on the hands with his spatula. "Oi, go sit down. Let her finish cooking and then you can ask questions!" He shouted, forcing the men to sulk over to the table with their captain. "This is quite new, even for you captain." Moose commented, sitting down on Law's right side. "I have to agree." Penguin said, sitting on his right side. "I mean, I saw her at the bar too, but she didn't seem that special." Law sighed and closed his eyes as he leaned against the table, placing his head in his hand. "If she proves to be a burden, we'll leave her at the next island."

Emma and Shachi handed everyone plates and silverware after they placed the heaping plates of food throughout the table. "Dig in, losers." Shachi grumbled before taking the empty seat across from Law. "Emma-chan, come sit here." Moose scooted over, patting the space in between the two. "Oh, alright then."

Everyone started the morning ritual of arguing over who gets what and how much. Emma was certain a brawl would erupt between Moose and Uni over the last piece of sausage. She looked over to her left at Law who, surprisingly for his frame, had a large plateful of food. "Oi, Emma-chan." Clione spoke between mouthfuls of egg. She piled a small portion of eggs and bacon on her own plate, probably the smallest amount out of everyone at the table. "Where are you from?" She deadpanned at him. "Already starting with the questions." She muttered before sighing. "I'm from a small island to the east called Isaldor."

"But you were on this last island? I don't think it was called Isa…. whatever."

"Isaldor. No, we were at Bell Island. I've been living there for about, oh, ten years now?"

"What made you move?"

"Lots of things happened. I stayed on Sabaody for a few years before I lived there."

"Oh, nice. Sabaody?! What did you do there?"

Emma looked down at her plate, frowning. "You guys ask a lot of questions." She mumbled and Moose laughed, slapping her lightly on the shoulder. "Ah, you get used to it. But to change the pace of things, what happened to your leg?" Ikkaku, who was sitting on his right side, smacked him on the back of the head. "You can't just ask people that!" She shouted, a vein forming on her forehead. "Ouch! It was just a nosey question, I'm sure we're all wondering!"

"Oh, it's not a huge deal." Emma laughed a little as she took a bite of food. She brought her left leg up into the seat, showing off the top portion of her shiny fake leg. "It got cut off when I was kid; about 10 years old or so. I made some people made I shouldn't have." Everyone nodded in unison, happy with her ominous question. "How'd you get the metal prosthesis?" Law finally chimed in, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She shrugged and paced her leg back down, continuing on with her meal. "There's a doctor on Sabaody who works with the World Government or the Marines or something. He did my surgery and got me my leg."

Law furrowed his eyebrows as he set his fork down on the now empty plate. This strange woman kept surprising him one detail after another. He'd never heard of the original island she was from but to live on Sabaody for a few years was strange to him. Of course, World Government and Marine doctors had access to an endless amount of resources, especially with Vegapunk there. He looked at her laughing and talking with the rest of the crew as if she hadn't just met them. She was definitely hiding something, but he wasn't certain if those secrets were worth investigating.

"Since you and Shachi are the cooks, someone else usually does the dishes after." Moose said, grabbing the plates Emma held in her hands. Breakfast was over and most of the crew had scattered to start getting the sub ready for landing at the next island. He handed them to Uni who was delegated for cleaning duty along with Penguin. "There's 21 other people here, you don't have to do everything. We know you'll pull your weight around here."

"Emma."

Law interrupted their banter, walking up next to them with Ikkaku by his side. She hadn't really noticed before, but he made her feel like a dwarf: towering over her by almost a foot. Moose and Ikkaku were tall as well and she craned her neck to look up at all of them. "You'll be getting a suit at the next island, so for now borrow Ikkaku's clothes." He pointed to the other woman who nodded in agreement. "How are your injuries?"

"Well," Emma rubbed her bandaged leg lightly. "my leg was kind of achy this morning, but that's about it." She confessed as he began to walk away. "If it doesn't go away by tomorrow, I'll give you some pain medicine." He said shortly before disappearing into the hallway, presumably heading upstairs.

"He's very straight to the point," She laughed awkwardly as the three walked in the opposite direction. "That's just how he is, but he's a good guy. He takes care of us." Moose said, shrugging casually and Ikkaku nodded in agreement. "He keeps to himself mostly. We're used to it by now. Anyways, I'll grab you some clothes and take you to the showers."

"Ah, please and thank you. A shower sounds amazing right now!"


	3. Chapter 3: Goin' Down

**Chapter 3**

" **Goin' Down"**

"Snow?!"

Penguin jumped back at the woman's exclamation: he'd never seen someone so happy about the stupid weather before. Emma zipped up the long back coat over her light blue t-shirt and dark blue jeans, all given to her by Ikkaku. "You've lived here your whole life and never seen snow?" Shachi scoffed as he handed Penguin a pair of blue gloves, matching his own.

"Ah, I love the snow. It's so comfortable and cold." Bepo had a sparkle in his eye as he walked over to the trio getting ready to head out. They had reached Wraxel quicker than she had expected and Law had designated the four of them plus Moose and himself to head into town. They needed more food and Emma required her own clothing, something she wanted to fight against. The boiler suits were hideous in her opinion, but Bepo's was especially gaudy.

"Every island I've been on was a summer island, so I've never played in the snow." She turned to Moose as he came down the hallway. "Do you think we could have a snowball fight? Or build a snowman?" She asked, placing her hands together to beg. The white-haired man laughed and handed her a set of black earmuffs. "I'm sure Captain will say we don't have time for that, but sure. Wear these, you're going to freeze out there."

Law, wearing a puffy yellow coat and holding his nodachi, finally came up from his room. "We don't need to be here too long. Get what we need and get out." He passed by the members of the crew that would be joining him, with Emma walking by his side step for step. "Doctor-san," she started, somewhat awkwardly. "have you ever seen snow?" Her attempt at conversation made him grin a little. "I hate snow." His blunt answer made her frown and shake her head.

"You're all so boring…."

As they reached the next floor where the door was, Emma could practically hold in her giddiness. Ty and Maru had told her so many stories about their days of pirating and the ones of snowy islands were her favorite. All the books with pictures of children riding their sleds down fluffy, white mountains were so joyful: something she learned to equate with snow. Law could barely get the door fully open before she ran past him onto the deck. Wraxel was small like Bell island, with only one medium sized town located near the shoreline. Behind the snow-covered town lay multiple hills: she was unsure if they were actual hills or snow. A slight wind blew, and she held her hands out, catching a few snowflakes. Her joy of a first snowfall barely lasted as a shiver went through her body. She turned to the men behind her, teeth chattering. "It's cold!"

"What did we tell you?!"

"But this weather is so nice, Emma." Bepo sang, walking over to the railing closest to the dock. Moose came up and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. "You still want to have that snowball fight?" She shrugged him off and lit a cigarette, turning to their captain. "Can we have a snowball fight?"

"Tch." Until now, Law hadn't shown any other emotion except cold or creepy. The annoyed look and vein growing on his forehead made her laugh a little. "Ah, yeah, Captain. I think we should totally have a snowball fight." Shachi and Penguin walked up on either side of the man, smiling devilishly. "I think we could show Emma-chan how it's done."

"W-Whoa! I didn't say team up against me! That's hazing!" She cried as Bepo grabbed her arm and pulled her off the sub. "Just don't cause trouble." Law muttered, following them as they dragged the poor girl onto the snow-covered land, refusing to join them.

The men pushed her into a snow pile off the cleared walkway and began packing handfuls of snow into balls. "Hey now! I don't even know how to make a snowball! What makes this a fair fight?!" She pushed herself back up onto her feet, attempting to run away. The snow was packed densely, was trudging away at a snail's pace. "We'll let you get a head start! You get 10 seconds! Starting….10!"

Her eyes widened as they created a large pile of snowballs quicker than she could count. This definitely wasn't as much fun as she had hoped.

"9!"

"Shit." She muttered, noticing Bepo had joined into the frantics. "I thought he was on my side."

"8!"

Sighing, she turned and began to pull her feet through the snow as fast as possible.

"7!"

It was much heavier than she expected, and her toes were starting to go numb.

"6!"

A snowball landed by her side and she snapped her head back at them, only a few feet behind. "You said ten seconds!"

"5!"

As Moose continued to count the others began to chuckle ominously.

"4!"

Emma accepted her fate at this point: in a few seconds, she would be completely covered in snow by people she thought were her new friends. She shook her head sadly and attempted to jog out of their distance.

"3….2…..1!"

Moose quickly counted down and she glared at them. "Cheaters!" She seethed as multiple snowballs came flying through the air. She threw her arms over head as a few pelted her on the back. To her surprise, they hurt. Nothing serious, but enough to be make her gasp. The most frustrating part, she discovered, was when they broke, pieces would come over the collar of her jacket and slide down her back. _'Those bastards! I'll-'_

Whatever thought that ran through her mind left as she tripped and fell face first into the freezing snow. The men erupted in laughter as she pushed herself on her knees, snow comically sliding down her cheek. She wanted to be angry at them, but she honestly should've expected this outcome.

"You ok there?" Penguin asked, wiping the tears from his eyes as they caught up to her. "Looks like you took quite a tumble." Shachi giggled, making her glare at him. "I'm fine. I just tripped….." She trailed off, looking down in front of her. It felt like her foot had gotten caught on something: she wasn't usually this clumsy. She lightly brushed away the area around her knees, revealing the front of a dark green coat. "What's that?" They began to crowd around her and Bepo knelt by her side, brushing away the upper half of the frozen coat.

"Ew."

The coat belonged to the body of a middle-aged man with dark blue hair and a matching, thick beard. In the middle of his forehead was a single bullet wound with blood frozen around the burned skin. "Oi, Captain!" Penguin called out to Law, who begrudgingly made his way over to the group. He was already annoyed they were wasting so much time here: he had heard rumors of Marines running amuck around here. "We found a frozen dead guy." Shachi said bluntly, tapping the dead man lightly with his foot.

"What do you expect me to do about this?"

"Well, we should tell someone. It's a small place, he might have a family." Emma noted, still kneeling by the body. Bepo and Moose nodded in agreement. "We'll just tell them we tripped over it. Leave it at that." Law sighed and turned his back to them. "I don't know why you called me over here then."

"You're so heartless captain!"

Penguin, Bepo, and Shachi went to go find villagers by the dock, leaving Moose and Emma to stand by the dead body. "I'm not so sure I like the snow….." She muttered, wrapping her arms around herself. The white-haired man laughed loudly and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You're a good sport. I was worried when Captain just added a new person like this, but you seem alright." He shook her lightly; rather annoying as she was trying to light a cigarette. "Thanks."

"You shouldn't smoke, it's bad for you. Even Captain'll tell you that."

She grabbed his wrist as he went to pull it from her mouth. "Hopefully I'll die an early death then." She joked, but he didn't seem to find it funny. "Nah, Captain wouldn't allow that either. Well, maybe. He likes to look at dead bodies sometimes and-" He stopped as she gagged a little. "Gross, I hate the smell of blood."

It didn't take too long before two men came running through the snow, worried looks plastered on their faces. The two pirates stepped away to let them kneel and get a closer look. "Shit." One of them muttered, clearing away the snow around the man's legs. "It's Yamamoto-san. Something didn't seem right when Rin-chan couldn't find him by the herd this morning." The other one waved them away. "Your friends are waiting for you over there. Thanks for letting us know."

"I wonder what happened…." Moose started off, kicking the snow up with each step. "Maybe there's a gang going around killing people." Emma suggested and he shook his head. "No, no. That's too easy. They said he was a shepherd or something. Maybe one of the animals got mad, kicked a gun, and it shot him!"

"Maybe the ghost of an animal he killed came back and shot him."

"Oh, that's a good one! An army of vigilante dead animals going around killing former abusers. We should write a novel."

They both laughed as they came up to Shachi, kicking the ground impatiently. "Quit goofing off. Captain put us in charge of the food. We don't need too much, but we're getting low on eggs." He motioned for them to follow before putting his hands in his pockets and taking the lead. "How do they even have animals here? It's so cold." She muttered as they entered a rather busy street. People were laughing and some kids were playing in the street. The businesses were bustling with customers and there was a scent of freshly baked bread floating in the air.

"Apparently that's all they do here. They mostly herd goats and oxen but they have lots of chicken farms too." Shachi answered, stopping them in front of the general store. It was packed: a huge line stood in front of what she could barely make out as the deli. He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and checked over the items out loud. "You guys stand out here, I'll get the stuff."

"Hey, we're not useless. We can help too!"

"You can help carry, there's too many people inside!"

Moose pouted as his fellow crewmember wadded into the sea of locals. "I wonder where doctor-san, Bepo, and Penguin went off too." Emma wondered out loud, tapping her finger on her chin. "Probably something more important than this. He always takes Bepo with him. Dumb, talking bear." He stomped the ground like a child, and she giggled a little.

"Rin-chan!"

Most people in street had stopped and turned towards a commotion closer to the docks. A woman with light brown hair up in a pony tail was sobbing and reaching out for her young son who was running away. Emma cocked her head to the side to see what was going on, only to be smacked in the legs by the kid, who fell to the ground. His dark blue hair matched his dark blue eyes which were full of tears and his bright red scarf covered the lower half of his face. "Are you alright?" She knelt next to him and reached out for his shoulder to comfort him, but he smacked it away.

"I'll kill all those shitty Marines!"

He took off again down the street and his mother came running up to the blonde woman. "I'm so sorry." She said in between sobs, and Emma just shook her head in sympathy. "He just found out his father died; he's a little upset."

"Are there Marines here on the island?" Moose asked her and she nodded, wiping away a few tears. "Yes, they have a small base just on the other side of the hills. They've been terrorizing us for months and months. People keep dying and leaving and…." She trailed off, looking behind the too pirates for any sign of her son. "I'm so sorry again. I need to make sure he's alright."

Moose and Emma looked at each other before watching the woman run off. "Marines on the island? Should we be worried?" She asked, looking up at him. "Well, Captain has been causing some problems in North Blue. I don't think they know we're in the Grand Line yet." He shrugged and crossed his arms. "Maybe we should go check it out." Her suggestion made him raise an eyebrow. "You already want to cause trouble? On your second day here?" She grinned and nodded. "I knew I liked you, Emi-chan!" He placed a hand on her head and laughed loudly; she just rolled her eyes at him.

"Shachi will probably be pretty pissed." She noted as they started their way down through the street. "He can be uptight about somethings, but he'll be fine. He doesn't seem to like you much though." She laughed a little, remembering their encounter at her bar. "Yeah, well. I may have embarrassed him a little before. He probably didn't appreciate that." Moose chuckled and shook his head. "He was probably being a pervert, right?" She nodded. "Not surprising. I think Captain, Ikkaku, and me are the only three not constantly thinking of boobs."

"Even Bepo?!"

"Bepo thinks of bear boobs, so….same thing I guess?"

Shachi sighed, crumpling the list of food back into his pocket. There wasn't a lot, but too much for him to carry back to the sub alone. "Thank you, sir." The man behind the counter smiled and nodded, handing him the last of the bags. The cook scooped them all up in arms and he could barely see over them. _'God, I hope I don't trip.'_ He made a horrid face at the idea of dropping all these eggs on the ground.

The frigid air smacked him in the face as he stepped outside; many people were staring at him carrying this ginormous load of food. He peeked over the bags, looking in all directions for the other two crew members he designated to help. "Guys?! Emma? Moose?" He called out, spinning around in a circle looking for them. People continued to stare, and a cute girl giggled, forcing a vein to grow on his forehead.

"I'm going to kill you both!"

It only took a fifteen-minute walk to come to edge of the main part of the village. Houses were starting to thin and become more farm like: many of them had multiple chicken coops in their yards. Coming closer to the giant hills revealed multiple cleared pathways and a large heard of ox to their left.

"I'm surprised any animal can live in this condition." Emma shivered and rubbed the sides of her arms. "Ah, they're pretty hardy, I guess. Unlike us fragile humans. I mean, Bepo is pretty fragile but you get what I mean." Moose chuckled at his own words as they came upon a divergence in the cleared pathways. "Well, it looks like this one goes to the hills on the left. And this one to the ones on the right. So, this one," She pointed at the path straight ahead. They were standing in front of the smallest hill in the middle of the island. "I guess it heads over…Which would be the quickest path to take." He sighed and nodded in agreement. "If we die of frostbite out here, I'll make sure to bother you in Hell."

"If anyone's gonna die of frostbite it'll be me." She frowned as they began the rest of their journey. "These clothes weren't really the best to be wearing for freezing temperatures." The sun began to peak more through the dark clouds in the sky, yet she could barely feel any warmth. "Neh, Emi-chan." She frowned at his new nickname for her and dropped the butt of her cigarette down into the snow. "Can you fight? We're about to run into a Marine base with just the two of us. We'll probably die if there's anything more than a Captain."

"Of course! I'm not some weakling. I wouldn't be doing this if I thought I couldn't handle it." She placed her hand on the back of her head, giving him an overconfident look. "Besides, I don't really know that much about Marines. I've not dealt with them much in my life." Moose raised his eyebrow at this. "Really? They never came by the bar you worked at?" She shook her head as they started to ascend the hill. The snow on either side of the path was tall enough to reach her hips, yet she could see little patches of grass and mud on the ground. "Yeah, Bell Island was pretty lawless. We didn't even have police, so no Marines ever stopped by. My home town was incredibly small: we never saw pirates or visitors."

"And at Sabaody?"

"Well, I never really went outside much. I saw them occasionally but didn't interact."

"You've lived a strange life there, Emi-chan."

She laughed and smiled at him. "I guess so. What about you?" He shrugged and placed his hands in his pockets. "Oh, I don't know. I was born and raised on a big island in North Blue. My parents died of illness when I was a teen and I just kind of worked little jobs here and there. I met Law about…" He stopped for a minute to think. "…. five years ago? Shachi, Penguin, and Bepo were already with him. They were just traveling and doing work when we became friends."

"So, you know a lot about him then?" She hadn't expressed it to anyone yet, but her curiosity of the doctor was why she agreed to join. He was creepy, she would give him that, but there was something more to it. "Yeah, a bit. Not as much as the other three. But he's not that bad of a guy. You've seen his Devil Fruit powers, right?"

"Yeah, the weird blue thing and he can chop you up."

Moose chuckled and looked up at the sky. "Yeah, it is pretty weird. But that's what makes him the best doctor I've ever met. All those stories about him torturing people to death are exaggerations. He doesn't really like to kill people." She furrowed her eyebrows at him. "A pirate? Not killing people?" She scoffed and he shook his head. "More like a doctor not killing people. He only does if he has to."

Emma pursed her lips, not knowing how to respond to his words. Was he trying to make her feel more at ease with a captain people called 'Surgeon of Death'? Was he just trying to make conversation? If he's known him for all these years, then maybe he is telling the truth. _'Why would a man with power like this not kill everyone he sees? Why does he-'_ Her thought cut off as she noticed something bright red just a few feet away, almost at the top.

"What do you think that is?" Moose asked as the two jogged towards it. "A scarf?" Bunched up in the mud was a vibrant red scarf. "Someone leave this here?" The knelt down beside it and she picked it up gently. It was soaking from the snow and bound to freeze soon in the weather. It had landed in a mud puddle like someone ripped it off and threw it on the ground.

"Let me go! I hate you!"

Giving each other a nod of agreement, they ran up the rest of the hill, leaving the scarf behind them. Reaching the top, they got down on their hands and knees to avoid being seen. Down the hill from them was the Marine's camp. It was small, about the size of a medium sized house, but at least ten of them were standing around outside drinking by a large fire. In the middle of it all was the small child from before, Rin, who was being held up by the collar by one of them. His little legs were kicking but couldn't reach the man, who was laughing loudly with the others.

"Listen hear punk, run back home to your stupid little farm animals and leave the adults alone. We don't have time to listen to your annoying ass!"

The Marine threw the kid on the ground, making everyone laugh even louder. A few more men came from the ship docked not far from them carrying boxes of alcohol. "Should we do something?" Emma asked and Moose shrugged. "What good would it do? Besides, I doubt we could take on all of them."

"What, there's 15? 20 maybe? We could do it."

"It's a good way to get your ass arrested. Captain would just leave you for being an idiot."

She frowned as the young boy stood and wiped the snow off him. At this point he was sobbing and pointing at the men. "Y-You killed my dad! How could you?! You're supposed to protect us!" He shouted and they continued to laugh. "What? That annoying man is dead? Does this mean that hot old MILF is single now?" Rin ran at the man again, screaming in anger. "Leave my mom out of this!"

"Annoying ass kid."

Again, Rin was thrown on his back, this time from a swift kick in the face. Emma was gritting her teeth at the scene. "I can't stand here and watch this." She confessed to Moose and stood up. He quickly grabbed her arm and shook his head. "Don't do this. I'll have to go get Cap-"

"Go get him then."

She ripped her arm away from him and slid down the hill using her hand to balance. "That girl," He scoffed and shook his head. "Only one thing to do." He sighed as he stood up, wiping away the mud and snow from his boiler suit. He watched her reach the bottom before sliding down after her, mumbling profanities along the way.

"Hey, leave the kid alone." All the Marines stopped what they were doing and snapped their heads in her direction. She walked over to Rin and helped him back on his feet. He was sniffling back his tears as he wiped the blood from his face. "You ok there?" He nodded but didn't say anything.

"Well, hey there pretty lady." The three main Marines Rin was dealing with walked up to her, their cheeks tinted pink from the alcohol.

Emma frowned as they came and got in her face. She saw Moose standing back by the hill in the corner of her eye. _'Hopefully he doesn't get too pissed about this.'_ She thought as the man walked closer to her. "Well leave the kid alone. But let's say you come back inside with us? We have plenty of booze?"

His free hand came closer to her face, and she took the opportunity to grab his forearm. He furrowed his eyebrows at her but laughed it off. "You've got quite a grip for a pretty young girl!" He shouted, making all the others howl in laughter. A devilish smile grew on his face as he stared into her eyes. "Now, about that offer sweetheart."

 **Crack.**

The Marine took a few moments to comprehend exactly what had happened before falling to the ground; screaming in pain, clutching his now broken arm and covered in his alcohol. Emma set her knee back down and calmly lit a cigarette; she could hear Moose chuckling lightly in the background.

"Y-You monster!" His buddy dropped his own alcohol and unsheathed his sword before lunging at her. "Armament." She stopped the yelling man's attack blow with the hardened palms of her hands. He looked horrified at her as she laughed. "It's been a while since I had a good fight!" She chuckled as he tried to push down harder. "Oi, Meri help me out!" The other man, shorter and fatter than them, jumped at his friends request but obliged. He unsheathed his own sword and came lunging at her.

' _Shit.'_ Emma's hands were caught up with the man in front of her and her feet were beginning to slide. Trying to keep her left foot planted as firmly as possible, she lifted her right leg to stop the blow, ripping the long coat at the zipper. _'Ikkaku's already going to kill me…'_ She sighed to herself as the sword clashed with her hardened shin. Glancing around, she could see the other 13 or so Marines had drawn their own weapons: swords, pistols, rifles. "Tch." The two men were shaking as they clashed against her and she knew she couldn't keep this up forever. Carefully, she released both of them, forcing them to come falling forward; a mixture of drunkenness and poor swordsmanship. She spun herself around, still only on her left leg, and brought her leg down on the back of Marine, kicking them into the ground on top of each other.

Before she could even get her leg back on the ground, a loud gunshot rang, and a bullet caught her on her upper right arm. Grimacing, she grabbed the bleeding wound and turned towards the direction it came from. A Marine was shaking violently as another Marine gently pushed his smoking rifle down towards the ground. As this new man appeared, the others seemed to calm themselves a little and lowered their own weapons.

"Miss," He started his way over towards. "Emma….you should leave!" Moose whisper-shouted at her, beckoning with his hands dramatically. She frowned, looking between her crewmate and this new man. His attire was different than the others: a long coat with golden tassled shoulders, as well as a medal adorning his right breast. _'Must be an important person.'_ She thought, pursing her lips.

"My name is Captain Murdoc." He smiled as he stood in front of her, reaching his hand out in hopes of a handshake. His four front top teeth were covered in gold and his ungloved hands had a multitude of rings. His hat tried to contain his mass of curly black hair, but it stull puffed out from under it. He wasn't very tall, maybe a few inches taller than herself, but his beady black eyes made her uncomfortable. "Miss, I assure you that my soldiers are working as hard as possible to protect this town and people like you from pirates."

"I doubt it." She smacked his hand away and he cleared his throat awkwardly. "I don't think a small kid would come running trying to fight Marines if he didn't have a good reason. Says you killed his dad. Is that true?" She glared at him, forcing him to laugh awkwardly. "Kids make things up all the time! But listen here," He placed his hands behind his back and leaned in close to her face. "You're surpassingly strong for a random girl. How about, we take you in to be a Marine here? They could really use you, you know?"

"If I say no?"

"You'll be arrested."

He placed a hand firmly on her left shoulder, a devious look on his face. "So, sweetheart. What's it gonna be?"

"I suggest you let go of my subordinate, Captain-ya."

Emma's eyes widened as she turned around slowly. Law was standing maybe a few feet away with Bepo and Penguin at his side. Moose's eyes were even wider, and he began shaking his hands theatrically, trying to express he didn't call their captain over.

"Trafalgar Law. The 'Surgeon of Death' as they call you." Murdoc released his grip from her shoulder and chuckled. "What a surprise to see you here! And a surprise to hear you call this cute, young girl your subordinate!" She frowned deeply; these men continued to downplay her strength and mock her as if she was a puppy. Law looked at her face, making him chuckle lightly and smile. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't downplay my crew's strength." He tapped his shoulder with his nodachi lightly before glancing at the three grown men writhing in pain in the snow. "Emma. Did you do this?"

Not expecting to be called out, she jumped a little and placed a hand on the side of her face, laughing awkwardly. "D-Doctor-san! Well, you see. They were bothering this kid. And then they tried to hit on me. It was gross. So I-" He gave her a stern look, stopping her rambling. "-Sorry. Yes, I did."

Instead of being mad as she had feared, he gave one of his creepy little smiles, his eyes shaded by his hat. "Since you've started this, you must help me finish it." He said, holding out his hand with his palm facing the ground. "C-Captain. We probably shouldn't be doing this." Bepo tried to intervene, laughing nervously. "Room." Law ignored his first mates' words as he created a blue half-sphere surrounding all the Marines. Some of them began to panic; dropping their weapons before running back to the ship.

Two brave Marines decided to challenge the doctor; charging towards him with their weapons drawn. Law glanced at them before turning to Emma, who sighed. "Fine, fine. I guess since I started this, I'll help you out." She muttered and faced them. One of them held a rifle up, aiming it directly in her face. "J-Just come with us! We can work something out if you turn yourself in!" He was trying to be brave, but his knees were buckling. The other one started shouting and began after her with his sword drawn.

"Tch. Come with you? As if you could catch us."

She stopped the man's attacks with her metal leg, sliding backwards with each hit. As he lunged at her, she dodged to the side, making him trip on his already unsteady feet. "Armament." This time, her left elbow was hardened, and she brought it down as hard as she could on his back. He spat a small amount of blood before dropping his sword and falling to the ground. The other Marine stood horrified, his arms shaking violently. "Y-You bitch!" He cried before firing off a round.

"Shambles."

The bullet had somehow disappeared along its trajectory and been replaced with a small pellet of snow, which promptly fell to the ground. Emma cocked her head to look at her captain, who was currently holding two of his fingers up. "Your power is pretty weird…." She muttered before pulling out her own revolver. _'My legs are freezing.'_ A small gust of wind blew over the field and she could feel goosebumps rising all over her body. She raised the gun and pointed it straight at the Marine, who was too fearful to move. With one shot to his stomach, he stumbled backwards, gripping his wound. Another Marine who had been running back towards their ship stopped in his tracks and turned back to help his injured comrade.

Emma frowned, throwing her cigarette butt on the ground. Most of the Marines wanted nothing to do with the pirates; the carried the few who were injured to their ship, leaving only their captain on the island. "You guys sure are pretty bothersome." He chuckled before raising his hands in the air. "But, I wouldn't be a Marine Captain if I couldn't handle some measly little pirates."

Suddenly, two giant venus flytraps rose from the ground beneath them. Emma and Law both jumped backwards, landing in front of Bepo, Penguin, and Moose. "What the hell are those?" Penguin gasped, ready to run away. "I can handle this, just head back to the ship-" Before Law could finish, another monstrous flytrap sprouted from under them. He managed to jump away while Emma, Moose, and Penguin were knocked to the ground.

"G-Guys!"

Bepo's arm reached out from the mouth of the venus flytrap, waving dramatically. "Shit." Law turned to look at Murdoc, who was laughing to himself behind the other two plants. "You three, work on getting Bepo out. I'll handle him." He unsheathed Kikoku and ran at the Marine. One of the plants lunged at him, it's mouth open wide and dripping with acid. He barely dodged a large drop that quickly dissolved through the snow and ground. "Dammit." He cut it about a foot down the stem, leaving the wiggling head on the ground and stem waving violently. He barely had time to think as the next one came down after him.

"Shambles!"

Law switched spots with Murdoc, who merely held up his hand to stop the vicious plant. "I can just keep spawning these precious creatures. Just turn yourself in, Trafalgar Law. It couldn't possibly be as bad as being digested over the course of a few days." Another flytrap burst through the ground next to Law, forcing him to jump backwards. "Tch." He wasn't expecting someone on this small island to have such a power. It wasn't necessarily as strong as it was obnoxious. He wanted to be annoyed with his newest subordinate, but he was almost surprised at her ability to use Haki and take on multiple Marines. While these may not be so bad, he knew they were already calling for backup and the pirates needed to head out soon. He stood up straight and looked down at his nodachi before looking back at Murdoc. If he wanted to end this soon, he'd have to use something different.

Emma placed her hands on her cheeks and stared helplessly at the closed mouth of the venus flytrap. She could see Bepo furiously kicking and punching the inside of it desperately. "What are we going to do?!" Penguin grabbed her shoulders and shook her. Moose sighed and pulled his two daggers out from his pockets. "Well, we have to find a way to get him out of here…."

"Stop shaking me you idiot!"

"This is your fault you know!"

"Can you two shut up?! Let's just do everything we can to get him out, ok?!" Moose pointed a dagger at the two, who quickly shut up. "Good. Now, you two hit with as much as you've got and I'll try to cut it. Got it?" They nodded and he turned his attention back to the giant plant. Lunging forward, he managed to strike part of the stem. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to notice the barely there cut. "Shit." Penguin came after it next, kicking and punching the same area with as much force as possible. Still, the same result: an unphased venus flytrap.

"Armament."

Emma came after the same spot, punching the area with all her hardened fists. The flytrap swayed for a moment, but still didn't seem to notice. "We probably have to aim for the head." She noted, making Moose shake his head. "It's easily 15 feet tall. How can we reach it? Maybe shoot it?" Penguin stopped Emma from pulling her revolver out. "We don't know where Bepo is in it! Here, how about this. I think I can launch you in the air." She raised an eyebrow at this statement and he shook his hands. "Just, listen. You jump, I kick, but you launch off my kick. I mean, it's all we've got right now."

Sighing, the blonde-haired woman obliged to the strange plan. "If this doesn't work, I'm haunting you." She pointed a finger at him and he just rolled his eyes. "We could call it something cool…like, the Penguemma launcher!" The other two sweat dropped at his lame statement. "Anyways, Bepo is stronger than me. I'm sure he can launch you higher than I can."

"That's cool, but how about we save him first?"

Moose chuckled as the two prepared to do whatever stupid maneuver Penguin came up with. Emma stood to his left, ready to jump. "Do you really think this is going to work?" She asked and he shook his head. "I'm not even close to a hundred percent sure it will work but it doesn't hurt to try." She sighed, unfortunately agreeing with him given the situation. "Ok, let's go." He spun, and just before completely the turn, she jumped up. Somehow, she managed to land on his leg as he kicked and she was able to launch off into the air above the venus flytrap's head.

Her stomach was doing flips as she floated momentarily, watching Bepo kick and punch viciously in its mouth. She could hear Moose and Penguin cheering about how this crazy plan worked out. "Armament." Her metal leg hardened and she thrusted her heel into the plant, forcing it to spit out her crewmate. Poor Bepo tumbled out into the snow, his eyes spinning and his boiler suit covered in burnt holes.

She landed on the ground next to him and quickly threw some snow on him, attempting to soothe the burns. "You're gonna make him freeze to death!" Moose cried, running over with Penguin. "I don't know what else to do!" She confessed as Penguin placed a hand on the bear's head, who was mumbling to himself. "Ah, he should be ok for now. Captain will check him over once we get back to the ship."

They had barely gotten Bepo to come back into consciousness when another venus flytrap erupted from the ground, coming at them with its mouth open. "W-We're gonna die!" Penguin cried, waving his arms around frantically. "Bepo is going to get eaten again!"

"Shambles."

Law appeared in front of his crew, slicing the attacking plant straight down the middle. "Get out of here now!" He called to them and they nodded. Penguin and Moose pulled Bepo's arms over their shoulders and began the trek over the small hill. He turned his focus back to Murdoc, who was now hidden by a sea of his creations.

"I'll keep repeating myself, Trafalgar Law. If you turn yourself in, this can end now!"

The doctor sheathed his nodachi, resting it up against his shoulder. He opened his palm up and looked down at it. _'I've only used this once before. Hopefully it doesn't take up too much of my energy.'_ The only way to master his Devil Fruit moves was to keep using them, even if it killed him.

He ran up to the first venus flytrap he could and placed his hand up against it. "Counter shock." Electricity radiated from the palm of his hand and through the plant. His characteristic grin came over his face as the blue sparks traveled from one plant to another. They began to quiver, letting out fearsome cries. It didn't take long for them to fall one by one, revealing a surprised Murdoc.

"Shambles."

Law appeared in front of the Marine captain, his nodachi drawn and pointed directly at his chest. The man was shaking violently and waved his arms, trying to stop the pirate. "L-Look. We can come to some sort of agreement, right? You don't have to kill me, right? We'll leave the town alone, I swear."

"Tch. You think I really care about this town?"

Murdoc's eyes widened. "W-What do you mean? You're just killing us…..to kill us?" Law shrugged. "I don't like to kill people. It just happens." The Marine attempted to step back, but his legs were shaking. "M-Monsters!"

"Injection shot."

Blood spurted from Murdoc's chest as Law's nodachi contacted his body, sending him flying back into the house which crumbled easily. His room disappeared as he sheathed his nodachi back. He was breathing heavily and his body felt weak. He hated how his powers took so much energy from him.

"What kind of Devil Fruit did you eat?"

He spun around to see Emma walking towards him, her ripped jacket flowing in the light wind. "I thought I told you to go back to the ship." He frowned down at her and she shrugged. "Moose and Penguin had him taken care of. Plus, I wanted to see you fight." Her arm was bleeding slightly, and her wound on her leg had opened back up. "You've proven yourself to be a bit of nuisance." She chuckled at that. "I can't help it." He narrowed his eyes at her. "You can't just help people. You're going to get us into more trouble than we can handle."

"Yeah, yeah." She waved her hand at him as she turned around and headed back towards the hill. "I don't really care about helping people. But, I'm not just gonna stand by and watch kids get hurt." He was a bit surprised by this, considering she beat that kid up back at the bar. "Just don't get us killed. Besides," He followed after her, his long legs catching up with her short stride easily. "I'm not the one angry with you." She stopped dead in her tracks, turning to him with a pale face and swallowed loudly.

"Shachi's going to kill me."

Sorry this took forever to write! It's a bit slow, but I wanted to build up on the crew's friendship with Emma some more while introducing some fighting. I'm excited to write this story and I have a lot in mind for it. Thanks everyone for the follows and favorites, you're the best! And thanks moglefrog for the review! So sweet of you! Hopefully I'll be able to get the next chapter out sooner! Thanks again!


	4. Chapter 4: In Between

**Chapter 4**

" **In Between"**

"There's a lot of interesting pirates these days, aren't there?"

After getting yelled at by Shachi for abandoning him, Law took Emma to the surgical area of the Polar Tang to stitch up her wounds. They had bought a newspaper on the way back, which she was using to distract herself from his work. She was looking at the wanted posters: Law's definitely stood out, but there were about 10 or so others with equally high bounties.

"This Eustass Kid guy seems kind of crazy…" She winced as he pulled her skin on her arm together. "His bounty is pretty high, 200,000,000 already." The man had a large, maniacal smile over his face; his description noted his excess use of force and large about of casualties wherever he was. "I think the most interesting is this kid though." She pulled out the wanted poster of Monkey D. Luffy and pointed at him. "He's pretty young. I've heard some talk of him back at the bar. It's weird he has the 'D' out there though. Everyone always told me no good can come from someone with that initial in their name."

Law, who was wrapping the bandage around her arm, stopped and looked at her. "What are you talking about?" He furrowed his eyebrows as she lifted the kid's wanted poster, pointing her finger at the 'D' in his name. He looked it over, frowning deeply: a goofy kid with a straw hat and a scar under his left eye. He hadn't been able to read the newspapers much lately to note there was someone with the 'D' gallivanting the Grand Line as well. She put the paper back in her lap and continued to flip through the other wanted posters.

"Do you understand what that name means?"

She put a finger on her chin and looked up at the ceiling, thinking. He continued to wrap her arm but didn't stop looking at her. _'Is she…?'_ He started to think but she shook her head and smiled. "Well, if you're thinking I'm one, I'm definitely not. I've overheard many conversations about it. The Celestial Dragons are terrified of the name."

He finished wrapping her wound and frowned deeply. "Sounds like you may know more than that, Emma." He said seriously, forcing her to look up. Her green eyes met his yellow ones; he could tell she was hiding something. "There really isn't more to talk about, Doctor-san. I know of the name, and that's it." She said, her tone changing from its usual lightheartedness. He raised an eyebrow at the sudden change in attitude. She was staring at the wall ahead of them, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"Oi, Captain!" Penguin walked in, grinning from ear to ear. He beckoned the two of them to follow. "That kid and his mom are outside! They brought us food and gifts!" Law crossed his arms and glared at Emma as she jumped down off the exam table. "Tch. We're not out here to make friends, you know?" She stuck her tongue out at him as she walked away. "Don't worry Doctor-san, you look scary enough to make sure we never come off as friendly."

"So nosey…." Emma muttered as she walked off towards the deck. She pulled the ripped coat around her body tightly, feeling the cold breeze hit her legs.

"Ah, Miss!"

Penguin, Shachi, and Ikkaku were standing on the deck of the ship talking to Rin and his mother. Ikkaku had on a long, brown jacket with a faux fur neckline that she seemed to be enjoying. The other two were holding baskets and drooling over the smell. "Rin-chan and his mother brought us some food and clothes for helping them!" Penguin said joyfully.

Emma walked over to the group and the young boy smiled up at her. "Thanks so much for helping with those evil Marines!" He gave a thumbs up and she chuckled. "They've been reigning over us for so long." His mother continued with a sad tone in her voice. "I'm just so happy they're gone."

"Yeah, you don't have to thank us. We would've fought them regardless." Emma shrugged as Shachi stomped over to her and grabbed her collar. "Now listen here, they may have brought us some goods but that doesn't mean I forgive you two for heading off." He frowned deeply and she chuckled, pushing him away. "Oi, oi! Don't start fighting in front of our guests!" Ikkaku grabbed both of their wrists, a vein popping in her head. Emma and Shachi quickly apologized, knowing all too well this could end in an ass beating.

Rin and his mother handed off the rest of the goods to the group, smiling brightly at their antics. "We hope you guys defeat all the bad Marines out there!" He cheered as they headed off the sub and his mother patted his head lightly. "Now, now Rin-chan." She cooed before waving them goodbye. "Good luck!"

"Hopefully everyone's lives are a bit more peaceful now!"

The pirates waved back and said their goodbyes before turning back into the sub. "Sorry about your jacket, Ikkaku." Emma said, gesturing to the torn bottom of the black coat. Ikkaku shrugged as she closed the door behind them, the two men taking off towards the kitchen with the food. "It happens. Just know you're never allowed to wear this beautiful coat ever." Her heart eyes made Emma laugh.

In the kitchen, most of the crew were surrounding Shachi and Penguin at the table. "Whatever happens, don't let Captain come up here." Moose whispered as he made eye contact with Emma. "Is something wrong?" She raised her eyebrow at them before Clione grabbed her hand and quickly pulled her over to the table.

In the center of it all were the couple of baskets Rin and his mother had given them: mostly filled with eggs, cheese, and freshly baked loaves of bread. Uni quickly covered the bread back up, checking behind him for any sign of their captain.

Moose pulled her head down close to his, his eyes shifting side to side. "Look, don't tell him I told you…. Ikkaku, keep an eye on the hallway." He pointed in that direction and without hesitation she immediately ran over. "Captain _**hates**_ bread. A lot. It's banned on this ship unless if he loses his mind and decides to allow it. Captain is pretty lenient on things, but he'd never forgive us for bringing bread on the sub."

Emma stared at him for a moment before busting out into laughter. "B-bread?!" She wheezed, tears pouring from her eyes. Most of the crew was panicking trying to quiet her down. "E-Emma-chan please! I know it seems ridiculous, but you need to calm down!"

She wiped the tears from the corner of her eye and looked at their paranoid faces. "I'm sorry, I was just so surprised a man like that would hate something like bread. Hate it enough to ban it at least." She let out one little laugh before clearing her throat. "Anyways, what do we do with it?"

"We all have to eat it as fast as possible." Shachi suggested, sitting down next to the baskets. He lifted the cover off one a little to look. "This one only has about two loaves, we could eat them all pretty quickly I think."

After they all nodded in agreement, Shachi and Emma began cutting the loaves inside the baskets to prevent the savory smell from wafting through the ship. "We don't have much time, Captain will probably come up here to get his afternoon coffee soon, so let's hurry."

There were about 5 loaves in total; everyone lined up to get a piece. Emma and Shachi shoved the first two in their mouths, their eyes widening. "It's so good…." Emma trailed off, placing a hand over her mouth as she chewed. "It tastes like love." Shachi mumbled, tears welling in his eyes.

"That's enough talking, give us some!"

"We gotta finish it all before Captain gets up here!"

"Hurry up!"

One by one, each crew member took a piece of bread and headed to the back of the line to make sure every crumb was eaten. Everyone was trying and failing to stop themselves from talking about how good it was. "We don't ever get to eat it anymore. I've missed it so much." Moose was sobbing as he grabbed his second piece.

"I can't believe I have to live without bread…." Emma sighed, starting to cut up the last loaf. She handed a piece to an anxiously waiting Penguin. "It's been years for me…." His eyes were hearts as he shoved the entire piece straight into his mouth, his cheeks tripling in size. She giggled at the sight, handing another piece of bread to Shachi.

"It's been so long you can't miss it cause you forgot what it tastes like…." Uni gently took another piece from her, his eyes sparkling. "Do you think he'd let this slide if he found out?" Ikkaku grabbed his shoulder tightly, glaring as she took another bite of her slice. "We don't have to worry about that, he's never gonna find out!'

Law groaned, rubbing his temples as he sat at his desk. He had opened the shades to his room, allowing the light to shine through, something he rarely did. Behind him were multiple bookshelves with mountains of books; many he had read several times. Papers were strewn across his desk, some with coffee stains and crinkled almost to unrecognition.

He looked up at the closed door in front of him and then to his left, focusing on his disheveled bed; he couldn't remember the last time he'd even slept on it. Most nights were him reading at his desk, unknowingly falling asleep, and waking up again in a few hours. He'd hoped coffee would help keep him awake, but lately his body had become immune to the power of caffeine. He looked back at his desk and the newspaper Emma had been reading early.

"Monkey D. Luffy."

It had been a long time since he'd heard that D initial out loud; he frowned. How many more of them were out there? What would be the outcome? He moved some more papers out of the way, revealing the second pirate with a similar name: Marshall D. Teach.

"This should be interesting…." He laughed lightly to himself, still rubbing his temples to prevent his headache from spreading. Emma had mentioned something no other common person should know about but swore she didn't have the D initial. She had mentioned she lived on Sabaody for a while and may have picked it up there. He knew there was more, but she continues to refuse conversation about herself. He still hadn't gotten the full answer about her leg yet.

Coffee.

The caffeine headache was growing, he needed to stop it before he wasn't able to focus on planning the future anymore. Bepo also hadn't started steering them away to their next island, and figured they were busy still talking with the locals.

Law placed his hat on his desk before walking out of his room, shaking his head at the events that transpired today. Emma was surprisingly strong but seemed to get herself in trouble relatively easy. With her befriending Moose, the current troublemaker, things will probably get worse from here.

"I'm making my headache worse thinking about them…."

As he went up the stairs, a weird smell lingered in the air from the kitchen. Maybe the locals had brought them food as it was strangely quiet. He almost hesitated to continue; knowing the crew, they were most likely causing trouble.

Reaching the top of the steps, Law frowned and narrowed his eyes. The sight that fell before him was unexpected, to say the least. His entire crew was splayed out all over the kitchen like exhausted puppies. Bepo was snoring on top of the table next to Emma and Shachi, who were groaning and holding their guts. Moose had his head laying on Clione's stomach and Uni was leaning back up against the wall. The rest were spread out by the table, some asleep and some groaning in pain.

"What…."

Law shook his head and walked over to Penguin laying on the ground closest to him. "Penguin…." At the sound of his name, he jumped up quickly, saluting the taller man in front of him. "Y-Yes Captain!" He stumbled out, shaking nervously. "What happened here?"

"Uh w-we'll you see- "

"Did those locals give you food?"

"Y-Yes."

"Did you eat it all?"

"M-Most of it…"

Law walked over to the kitchen and began making his coffee, sighing to himself. "Penguin, wake Bepo up and let's get out of here." The man nodded quickly before walking over to the sleeping bear. With one slap to the face, Bepo sprung up, angrily looking at his crewmate. "What the hell was that for, you asshole?!"

The two continued to bicker as Penguin dragged away Bepo to leave, making Law shake his head and sigh. He was fairly surprised, knowing the crew's usual shenanigans, half the submarine could have been on fire. He poured the already made coffee into a cup and headed back to his room. With one last look over the scene of his crew passed out after gouging themselves, he smiled a little and went down the stairs.

Two days of traveling had passed since the incident at Wraxel Island, but Emma had found herself quite comfortable within the ranks of the Heart Pirates. Her arguments with Shachi were amusing, much to their captain's annoyance. Ikkaku was thankful to finally have another woman on the sub full of testosterone. Bepo was easy to nap on, as well as the best target for jokes. Moose, however, was so far who she felt most comfortable on the ship with. According to Penguin, he was the main troublemaker of the crew, so it was only natural she became best friends with him.

"Man, this thing is really ugly." Emma held up the tan boiler suit Ikkaku had handed her a few moments ago.

" _Captain likes for us to all wear these. I finally finished getting yours fixed up."_

Sighing, she closed the door until there was a small crack of light from the hallway before undressing. "He definitely doesn't seem like the type of person to have such a bland wardrobe…." She chuckled to herself, removing her top and pants before pulling out a solid black sleeveless crop top. _'And I'm definitely not one to follow the rules around here."_

"Oi! Bepo's getting ready to dock, we should totally practice fighting!"

Moose flung the door open to a mostly naked Emma facing him. Both their faces turned painfully red, and she threw her top at him. "Have you never heard of knocking you perv?!" She screamed, covering her breasts with her right arm and turning her back to him. "Well, if it makes you feel any better," He laughed awkwardly. "I definitely don't care about seeing naked women at all." He moved his hand to cover the lower half of her body from view. "That still doesn't excuse you from not knocking!" She turned her still red face to him, pouting. His saddened eyes were locked on her back.

"Emi-chan…"

Emma's eyes widened, forgetting her back was completely uncovered. Moose was staring sadly at the mark on her back. "P-Please give me my shirt." She said awkwardly. He didn't answer, only walked slowly towards her. "And, don't tell anyone about this, promise?" His finger lightly touched the area of her back she hated most: the mark of the Celestial Dragons, the Hoof of the Flying Dragon. "No, I won't tell anyone." He handed her the shirt. "But just know you can always talk about it with me." His hand moved to her shoulder, squeezing it tightly. She gave him small smile, nodding slightly. "I appreciate it."

Moose left the room, closing the door all the way so no one else came in after him. Emma was holding her shirt tightly in her hands and staring angrily down at it. Every day, every single day of her life she tried to forget about the past before she lived with Ty-san. Not once could she have ever imagined herself as a pirate, but if Law's plan involved destroying the Celestial Dragons, she would follow him to the end of the world.

Fighting back memories, she put her shirt on and pulled the boiler suit up her legs. _'I'm definitely not putting this all the way on.'_ She let out a small chuckle as she tied the arms of the suit around her waist. "Perfect!"

Emma left the girls' room and closed the door gently behind her. Ikkaku was waiting patiently in the hallway, her arms crossed over her chest and a wrench in one hand. "I heard you and Moose yelling at each other, so I came over to make sure everything was alright." She was smiling brightly. "He told me he opened the door on you changing, of course I had to knock some sense into that idiot." She made a smacking gesture with the wrench causing Emma to chuckle.

"Well, we should be landing soon. Captain is wanting to spend a few days here, so we don't all go crazy stuck in here!"

The two women walked towards the kitchen where Shachi was making afternoon snacks for everyone. "Emma!" Bepo was motioning for her to sit next to him at the table. "Oi, oi!" Shachi pointed at her with a spatula, frowning. "Be useful and take these plates to the table, ok?" Emma stuck her tongue out at the red-haired man making Ikkaku chuckle beside her.

"You're always so angry with me." Emma pouted, picking up three plates of onigiri. "You're too much trouble." He grumbled, probably still angry about being left at the last island. She snickered and shook her head. "Fine, fine. I've worked at the restaurant for the past 8 years; I don't mind helping in the kitchen!"

Shachi was mumbling nonsense to himself as she carried the plates to the table. "Who's driving if you're here, Bepo?" Emma asked the polar bear, setting the last plate down in front of them. "Hm?" He grabbed one of the onigiri off the plate. "Oh, there are three off us who know how to drive the sub: me, the best obviously, Penguin, and Clione. Penguin is the one driving right now, he said we should be landing within the next half hour!"

She smiled as he happily chomped away on the food. She tried not to question the fact he was a talking polar bear, she'd met someone similar in the past, but it was still fascinating to meet a talking animal. "Oh yeah!" He stuck his paw out in front of her, holding a misshapen pink handkerchief in his palm. Her eyebrows furrowed but she took the piece of fabric in her own hand.

"What's this for?"

"Well," Bepo shoved another onigiri in his mouth. "Most everyone here wears a hat! I tried to make you something nice to fit in, but, well…." Emma smiled softly down at her hands and began folding long ways. "Thank you very much, Bepo. This means a lot to me." Gently, she placed the handkerchief behind her neck, pulling it to the top of her head and tying it in a small bow. The headband caused her bangs separated slightly from the rest of her hair, framing the sides of her face, which she twirled around her fingers.

"It's perfect! I love it!"

Bepo's cheeks turned pink as he wiped some rice off his lips. "I know Shachi isn't helping, and I'm not very good at making things, but I hoped you would like it!" She nodded happily. "Of course!" She lit a cigarette and placed it between her lips. "I can't wait to explore the ocean with you guys!"

 **Sorry for being awful and not updating. I haven't written in a LONG time, and realized that I had been rushing the first 3 chapters and they weren't really great so I wanted to wait until I had time and energy to write some. I'm not a perfect writer by all means, but I really enjoy my OC and want to continue this story! Thanks for the helpful insights and reviews though, I really appreciate them! 3**


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